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cosmolinguistI am in the middle of* a wonderful book, but I'm finding it as difficult to settle down and read it as I find it to write the review of Glamourpuss that Andrew wants from me, or lessen the chaos in the living room, or clean enough of the kitchen to make myself some food, or throw yet another load of laundry in the washing machine.
Why's it such a chore to sit back and read a book? Even a really good one, which I'm already certain this is. In Why am I finding the internet so compelling, even when I'm caught up on my e-mails and there's no one online who wants to talk to me?
When I was little, I used to imagine being a writer of books. I imagined my handwriting getting good enough to belong alongside the neat serifs in all those typefaces (which may well be one of the reasons my handwriting can be so neurotically neat to this day). I imagined getting the blank book and filling it up neatly, page after page, until I held something like I was reading before I went off into this daydream.
I later found out that no one can write so neatly, and books aren't bound before they're written (this is a lesson I have yet to learn: the many mostly-empty journals strewn about my bedroom — and my life — attest to this). I could write with the same alphabet but it wouldn't look the same, and it wouldn't feel the same.
I swear, one of the reasons I like the internet so much is that I have only to type in the right sequence of letters, http://minnesattva.livejournal.com/ , to find myself on the internet. If I type another string of letters in the same place I might find, well, anything. One of my college professors, or a celebrity I actually like, or someone I've managed to fall in love with, or even some of those books I read, and many I still want to read.
It's all there, along with me. And it's exactly the thing what I was hoping for and finding lacking in those books I daydreamed over as a kid: not finished yet.
* Actually pathetically near the beginning of; I got all the way from page twenty-three to page twenty-six so far today. Out of 777 pages.
Why's it such a chore to sit back and read a book? Even a really good one, which I'm already certain this is. In Why am I finding the internet so compelling, even when I'm caught up on my e-mails and there's no one online who wants to talk to me?
When I was little, I used to imagine being a writer of books. I imagined my handwriting getting good enough to belong alongside the neat serifs in all those typefaces (which may well be one of the reasons my handwriting can be so neurotically neat to this day). I imagined getting the blank book and filling it up neatly, page after page, until I held something like I was reading before I went off into this daydream.
I later found out that no one can write so neatly, and books aren't bound before they're written (this is a lesson I have yet to learn: the many mostly-empty journals strewn about my bedroom — and my life — attest to this). I could write with the same alphabet but it wouldn't look the same, and it wouldn't feel the same.
I swear, one of the reasons I like the internet so much is that I have only to type in the right sequence of letters, http://minnesattva.livejournal.com/ , to find myself on the internet. If I type another string of letters in the same place I might find, well, anything. One of my college professors, or a celebrity I actually like, or someone I've managed to fall in love with, or even some of those books I read, and many I still want to read.
It's all there, along with me. And it's exactly the thing what I was hoping for and finding lacking in those books I daydreamed over as a kid: not finished yet.
* Actually pathetically near the beginning of; I got all the way from page twenty-three to page twenty-six so far today. Out of 777 pages.